Co-Parenting and Parental Involvement in Chinese Families: Parenting Competence as a Mediator

Co-parenting is linked to parental involvement in children’s learning activities, yet the mechanisms and interdependence between mother-father dyads remain unclear. Drawing on 251 Chinese mother-father dyads of preschoolers, this study examined the direct effects of mother- and father-reported co-parenting quality on parental involvement in children’s learning and the indirect effects via perceived parenting competence. Actor-partner interdependence modeling suggested that mothers’ and fathers’ perceived competence was related to their own perceptions of co-parenting but not their spouses’. Mother-perceived competence was positively associated with parental involvement in all learning activities except formal math learning. Moreover, mother-perceived competence fully mediated the effect of mother-reported co-parenting on parental involvement in children’s literacy learning but not math learning. No indirect effect of father-reported co-parenting via father-perceived competence was found. The study highlights Chinese mothers’ central role in organizing the home learning environment and the importance of fathers’ co-parenting support to mothers within the family systems.